1. Field of Technology
The present invention relates to a data recording system for recording data transmitted via telephones, such as voice data, video data, etc. In particular the invention relates to a data recording system whereby the contents of telephone communications performed using a mobile telephone and a public telephone network can be acquired by a telephone call recording apparatus and then stored in a similar format to that applied to telephone calls performed using internal telephones which connect via a switchboard to the public telephone network.
2. Description of Prior Art
In recent years, types of telephone voice recording system have been developed which apply VOIP (Voice Over IP) technology to transfer voice data over a computer network such as the Internet, and whereby the contents of a telephone call can be stored as data in a device such as a personal computer. These are typically telephone calls which are made using internal telephones of a company or institution, whose calls are switched via a local telephone switchboard of that company or institution to a public telephone network.
Furthermore, with the present-day rapid popularization of use of mobile telephones, business information interchange by using mobile telephones has started to be performed by individuals from locations which are distant from the offices or company premises of these individuals.
Moreover, with the popularization of mobile telephones, methods are being realized whereby data such as telephone numbers and other information which are held stored in a mobile telephone can be edited by using an appropriate user interface such as a personal computer. On the other hand, with the rapid increase in use of the Internet, standardized types of memory card interface have been developed for personal computers, and this has resulted in a lowering of the prices of memory cards.
In view of the above, there have been proposals to provide an interface for mounting a memory card in a mobile telephone, to thereby enable the data stored in a memory card to be used by both a personal computer and a mobile telephone. For example with Japanese patent HEI 11-74962, instead of being limited to the small amount of internal memory of a mobile telephone, a removable memory card is utilized to achieve an increase in the available memory capacity of the telephone. It thereby becomes possible for the mobile telephone to store various types of data other than simply information such as telephone numbers.
Furthermore in the case of Japanese patent HEI 6-236316, an arrangement is proposed whereby various different types of data communication devices, having respectively different types of formats for handling data, can operate in common on data stored on a memory card.
However with prior art types of telephone voice recording system, the system is primarily directed towards recording the contents of telephone calls which are carried out using internal telephones (e.g., of a company or other institution). Such a system cannot be used to record the contents of telephone calls which are made using a mobile telephone via a public telephone network, i.e., without the telephone call being switched through the internal telephone switchboard of the office.
Furthermore, with a prior art type of system which applies the use of memory cards to mobile telephones, the emphasis is placed upon how to handle the data which are stored in the memory card, and no provision is made for providing an overall high degree of convenience and efficiency of utilization.
In the following description and in the appended claims, the term xe2x80x9cinternal telephonexe2x80x9d will be used to refer to a conventional type of telephone (such as an internal telephone as mentioned hereinabove) which can be connected to a public telephone network either directly or via an internal telephone switchboard of a company or other institution, as opposed to a mobile telephone which communicates with a public telephone network by radio communication via a base station of a mobile telephone system.
Furthermore in the following description and in the appended claims, the term xe2x80x9cvoice dataxe2x80x9d of a telephone call will be used to refer to the contents of the voice communications exchanged between two telephones during that telephone call, expressed as a set of digital data, while the term xe2x80x9ccommunication dataxe2x80x9d of a telephone call will be used to signify any other type of data contents, such as data expressing still or moving images which have been transmitted by a telephonic communication, in the case of a telephone having a video capability.
It is an objective of the present invention to overcome the above problems of the prior art, by providing a simple and efficient data recording system whereby the voice data or communication data contents of telephone calls which are made using a mobile telephone which communicates via a base station with a public telephone network , can be acquired by a telephone call recording apparatus and then stored in the same manner as voice data or other data contents of telephone calls which are handled by internal telephones that connect directly to the public telephone network via a local switchboard.
Basically, the invention overcomes the prior art problems by providing a system whereby each mobile telephone is equipped to utilize a memory card as a removable data storage device. When a user of a mobile telephone makes (or receives) a telephone call which is transferred through a public telephone network, the contents of that telephone call (i.e., voice signal contents, expressed as a set of digital data, or communication data contents such as a set of digital data expressing still or moving images) are stored on a memory card, in conjunction with information relating to the opposite party in the telephone call such as the name of the opposite party etc., in a predetermined data record format which is identical to that utilized by the telephone call recording apparatus when recording the contents of telephone calls made by telephones which can be connected directly to that telephone call recording apparatus. After completion of the telephone call, the telephone call data record which has been stored in the memory card is transmitted to the telephone call recording apparatus to be stored thereby. Preferably, the system is configured such the memory card can be inserted into a computer such as a portable personal computer, and transmitted to the telephone call recording apparatus via a computer network.
More specifically, according to a first aspect, the invention provides a data recording system having internal telephones of a company or other institution, a telephone switchboard for performing switching of telephone call connections of the internal telephone, for connecting these telephones to a public telephone network, and a telephone call recording apparatus for recording communication data or voice data contents of telephone calls which are performed using the internal telephones. The system further includes mobile telephones each provided with interface means for connecting to a memory card, and further preferably includes computers which are utilized in conjunction with the mobile telephones and are each provided with memory card interface means, a computer network for relaying data between computers, and a gateway for relaying data from the telephone call recording apparatus to the computer network and for relaying data from the computer network to the telephone call recording apparatus. Each mobile telephone also includes internally stored information such as a telephone directory type of database which stores data (such as names, E-mail addresses, etc.) linked to respective telephone numbers of individuals or institutions which may engage in telephone calls with that mobile telephone. Each mobile telephone also includes means for storing in a memory card a telephone call data record containing the communication data contents or voice data contents of a telephone call which is performed using that mobile telephone, and means for reading out a part of the internally stored information which relates to an opposite party of the telephone call such as the name of that opposite party, and for inserting that information into the telephone call data record. At some convenient time following completion of the telephone call, the telephone call data record is read out from the memory card and transmitted to the telephone call recording apparatus, to be stored therein in the same way as data contents of telephone calls performed using the internal telephones.
As a result, it becomes possible for a user to perform operations including recording, erasing and storing of contents of telephone calls made from a distant location using a mobile telephone, in the same manner as is applied to internal telephone calls.
According to another aspect of such a system, the mobile telephone can include means operable for selectively recording the main points, i.e., most important portions, of the contents of voice data or communication data of a telephone call. This is achieved by registering the start and end times of each main point (i.e., in response to user input commands such as predetermined key actuations) in relation to the start of recording the contents of the telephone call. That is to say, each start point or end point of recording a main point of the telephone call contents is registered as an amount of time that has elapsed from the start of recording the telephone call contents. These elapsed time values are stored in a telephone call data record on a memory card together with the recorded telephone call data contents, and so can be subsequently transmitted together with the telephone call data contents to the telephone call recording apparatus. The telephone call recording apparatus can thereby extract the main point data portions from the entire telephone call data contents, without the need to actually transmit the data contents of the main points to the telephone call recording apparatus. In addition, the mobile telephone includes means for extracting these main point data portions from the memory card data, after completion of the telephone call, and storing the main point data in an internal memory of the mobile telephone. The user of the mobile telephone can thereby listen to or otherwise utilize the main point data contents, with only a small amount of internal memory capacity being required to achieve that. In that way, the amount of data which must actually be transmitted from the memory card to the telephone call recording apparatus to transmit the recorded main point contents is minimized, while in addition the internal memory capacity requirements of the mobile telephone are also minimized. Furthermore the user can act on the contents of the recorded telephone call more efficiently, since it becomes unnecessary for the user to listen to the entire telephone call contents in order to recall the main points of the call contents. In addition, it becomes unnecessary to store non-essential data (i.e., the main point data contents, separate from the entire recorded telephone call data contents) in the memory card.
According to another aspect of such a system, the system can be configured such that when a user of a mobile telephone inserts a memory card having a telephone call data record stored thereon into a computer that is connected for communication with the telephone call recording apparatus, identifier information concerning that user and concerning the opposite party of the telephone call corresponding to that stored data record, together with information specifying the time at which the telephone call contents started to be recorded, are transmitted to the telephone call recording apparatus. The telephone call recording apparatus is provided with means for then determining whether there is a telephone call data record stored therein of a telephone call with that opposite party, which started to be recorded prior to that of the telephone call whose contents are stored on the memory card, then that telephone call data record which is being held stored at the telephone call recording apparatus is transmitted to the computer, to be stored in the memory card.
In that way, the user of the mobile telephone can always obtain the most up-to-date telephone call contents relating to a specific individual, such as a business client.
According to another aspect of the invention, when a telephone call which is being made using a mobile telephone is transferred to an internal telephone, then the first part of that telephone call is recorded on a memory card and subsequently transmitted to the telephone call recording apparatus, while the telephone call recording apparatus records the second portion of the transferred telephone call, and subsequently combines these first and second portions, and stores the combined data as the contents of a single telephone call.
These and other aspects of the invention will become more apparent from the following description of preferred embodiments.